Pages

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg

In Fallen
Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr , Nancy
Isenberg, Professor of History at Louisiana State University, contends that she
is the first historian to write a biography of America’s third vice president.
She takes to task previous biographers as well as writers of fiction, who she
argues, have distorted and maligned Burr’s character. Isenberg sets out to
rehabilitate Burr’s reputation here. This is a well-written and thoroughly
researched and engaging biography and should be of great interest to anyone
interested in Revolutionary and post Revolutionary America or the history of
government in general. It has much to commend it.

Burr
was born in 1756 in New Jersey to a semi-prosperous family but was orphaned at
a young age. He was educated at College of New Jersey in Princeton. He later became
a military hero in the American War for Independence. After his service in the
Continental Army, Burr became a successful attorney as well as a leading figure
in New York State, and eventually national politics. Though some pushed him to
be president, he emerged from the presidential election of 1800 as Thomas
Jefferson’s Vice President. Amazingly, while serving in this position, he
fought the famous duel that ended in the death of Alexander Hamilton. After
being pushed out of office prior to the second Jefferson Administration, Burr
spent several years endeavoring to establish conditions and an organization
conducive for a private force to attack and conquer the Spanish Territories of
Florida and Mexico, with an eye toward enlarging the young United States. As a
result of these machinations, Burr was brought up on, what Isenberg argues,
were trumped up charges for treason against the United States. Eventually Burr
was acquitted of all crimes. Though politically ruined and hounded by creditors
and political enemies for most of the remainder of his life, Burr was not personally
broken, and he eventually settled down and continued to practice law and be
socially accepted in New York State. He
died in 1836. For two hundred years biographers and others have vilified Bur as
an immoral schemer, traitor and sexual deviant.

Isenberg
makes a strong case that unsubstantiated character assassination not only destroyed
Burr’s political career, but led to his demonization for two hundred years. As
the practice of attacking leaders and other public figures, sometimes based upon
inaccurate facts and false conspiracy theories, is ripe in the world today, I
believe that we can learn important lessons from Burr’s story and from Isenberg’s
chain of reasoning.

Isenberg
defends Burr in several ways. First she readily acknowledges Burr’s
imperfections but argues that few historical figures can be described as pure
heroes or villains. She very perceptively writes that “History is not a bedtime
story” and goes on to state that Burr was “no better and no worse” than the
other founders of America. For example, Burr’s detractors often harp upon the
fact that Burr was in debt and had a multitude of unpaid creditors. These debts
were the result of poor speculative decisions. However, this tendency to accrue
huge and difficult to pay liabilities was symptomatic of many of Burr’s
generation, including such esteemed personages as Alexander Hamilton. Any
student of Thomas Jefferson’s knows that he piled up more and more debt
throughout life, in his case the result of lavish uncontrolled spending.

Another
line of attack against Burr was that he was wildly and recklessly promiscuous. While
he did have multiple affairs with women after the death of his wife, this
pattern of behavior also was very common among Burr’s peers, including
Hamilton, Jefferson as well as Benjamin Franklin.

For
me, the most problematical event in Burr’s life was the killing of Alexander
Hamilton in the famous duel at Weehawken, New Jersey. While difficult to fully
justify Burr’s actions, there were strong extenuating circumstances involved.
As Isenberg points out, and I believe to be true from other sources, Hamilton
could be a verbally vicious man who slandered and attacked his political enemies
both in writing and through gossip. After years of nasty personnel baiting,
Burr had had enough and resorted to challenging Hamilton to combat. While
extremely dangerous, dueling rarely resulted in the death of the participants.
Though the author points out the are conflicting accounts of exactly what
happened at Weehawken, she presents a strong argument that Hamilton’s death was
more of a matter of chance rather then of malice.

I
would surmise that the death of Hamilton would likely fall under our present
day definition of manslaughter. While this incident certainly must be included
in any summation of Burr’s life, I would further extrapolate Isenberg’s point that
we need to make a fair comparison between Burr and his peers, by considering ugly
incidents and character traits exhibited by the other men of the founding
generation. For instance, Washington ordered multiple executions of both his
own men as well as for loyalist and British adversaries, for minor offenses during
the Revolutionary War. Washington, Jefferson and many other powerful men held
large numbers of slaves during the same period. There are many other examples
of founders behaving immorally. These flaws in others, in no way justify Burr’s
actions. However if we do condemns Burr for Hamilton’s death, I think that such
condemnation needs to be leveled for other, perhaps more severe offenses,
committed by many cherished American icons at the time.

Conspiracy
theories play an important part in past and present attacks upon Burr. After
his tenure as vice president, Burr was involved in organizing and planning a
“Filibuster”, or civilian invasion and conquest of what were then Spanish
territories, presumably in conjunction with an American war against Spain. Isenberg’s
book argues that Burr’s plans against Spain were twisted and distorted by
hysterical enemies into a non- existent plot to formant succession of the western
United States, as well as the overthrow of the Jefferson Administration by
force. Supporting the contention that there was no truth to the accusation of
treason, is the fact that although Burr was subjected to several trials arising
out of these charges, he was eventually acquitted of all involvement with any
crimes.

The
claims revolving around Burr’s supposed seductive power and escapades also remind
me of similar attacks leveled upon modern politicians and even American Presidents.
Burr was and is often portrayed as a rakish womanizer. Isenberg argues that the
fraction of stories that are accurate, in no way set Burr apart from many of
his historically esteemed peers such as Hamilton and Jefferson. There was
however another dimension to these attacks and insinuations. Both as a
political leader and organizer, as well as a planner of a potential Filibuster,
Burr seemed to attract many young men as dedicated followers. Isenberg
speculates that Burr’s appeal may have been attributed to a strong and
compelling personality, and surmises that he may have exuded a charisma not
unlike Humphrey Bogart or Clint Eastwood. Burr’s enemies characterized this
tendency to attract such followers in a sinister light, as some kind of
homosexual erotic seduction.

Burr’s
adversaries often portrayed Burr as having no real ideals, of taking whatever
position benefited him at the time. Isenberg points out that the opposite was
true. Politically, while a moderate, he was steadfast to his beliefs and loyal
to his friends. Contrary to false allegations, several episodes, including the contentious
Presidential election of 1800, found Burr acting both ethically and fairly.

Furthermore, Isenberg presents Burr as an enlightened
and progressive thinker. He was an advocate of the political philosophy of Utilitarianism.
He championed and advanced the right of the public to directly elect
representatives. He held and exorcised, what for the time, were radical
feminist ideals, strongly advocating education for women as well as women’s
rights in all areas. He educated his daughter beyond the level of most upper
class men of the time. This was unprecedented for late eighteenth century
America.

Isenberg
makes a strong case that Burr has been terribly maligned in his time and throughout
American history. I do tend to distrust the general consensus historically or
contemporarily, when a person is either exalted or vilified. I am leaning towards the opinion that Isenberg
‘s interpretation is fair and relatively accurate. As my knowledge of Burr’s
life was sketchy before reading the book, however, I need to be exposed to
contrary sources before being really certain. Isenberg points out that Ron
Chernow’s Alexander
Hamilton presents a much more negative take on Burr. That book is sitting
on my shelf and I need to read it in order to really be more confident that I comprehend
the issues.

I
must conclude that Fallen
Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr lays
out a case study as to how a prominent figure’s enemies can create a web of
slander and inaccurate impressions aimed at damaging and ruining the victim. In
our age where media outlets, as well as communication networks, such as cable television
stations, newspapers, partisan websites, etc. very effectively pursue nearly
identical tactics, this history book should be read as a cautionary tale.

2 comments:

Sadly, I know nothing about American history, but this book sounds like a good attempt to set the record straight about someone whose reputation has taken a battering. Politics creates powerful enemies, so it is little wonder the public gets less than a true account of many politicians' lives.

Hi Violet – The interesting thing is that some public figures are showered with undeserved adoration, occasionally even for horrendous acts while others are sometimes vilified for the wrong reasons. I think that Isenberg gets it right when she points out that the truth is somewhere in between.